Biography

"Rouse tempers, goad and lacerate, raise whirlwinds": these instructions were pinned above the desk of Kenneth Tynan, and he followed them religiously. The finest drama critic since George Bernard Shaw, architect of Olivier's National Theatre repertoire, deviser of the erotic revue Oh! Calcutta!, journalist and social reformer, Kenneth Tynan was, in Tom Stoppard's words, "the product of our time, but our time was of his making."

Works

He That Plays the King (1950)

Persona Grata (1953)

Alec Guiness (1953)

Bull Fever (1955)

Quest for Corbett (1960)

Curtains (1961)

Tynan on Theatre (1964)

Tynan Right and Left (1967)

Oh! Calcutta! (1969, devisor and contributor)

A View of the English Stage (1975)

The Sound of Two Hands Clapping (1975)

Show People (1979)

Profiles (1990, ed. Kathleen Tynan, Ernie Eban)

Kenneth Tynan Letters (1995, ed. Kathleen Tynan

Kenneth Tynan, Theatre Writings (2007, ed. Dominic Shellard)